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Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys
NEH and ALA Bridging Cultures: Muslim Bookshelf Collection
Date & Time
January 14, February 11, March 4, April 8, and May 6, 2014, 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Location
Pleasant Hill Senior Center
233 Gregory Lane Pleasant Hill, CA 94523
The Center for Islamic Studies is delighted to be a local sponsor for, Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys. Pleasant Hill Library was one of 125 libraries and humanities councils nationwide to receive a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association in order to...

Center for Islamic Studies Visiting Scholar Carol Bier will be presenting an invited paper on "Intersecting Polygons/Exploring Space in Medieval Islamic Architecture." This will be during an all-day special session on Current Areas of Interest in the Mathematical Sciences of Medieval Islam at the Joint Mathematic Meetings (American Mathematics Society and the Math Association of America), to be held at the Convention Center in Seattle in January.
When: January 9, 8am-5pm
Where: Washington State Convention Center, Seattle WA
For more details, please see: http://jointmathematicsmeetings....

The Center for Islamic Studies at the GTU is pleased to announce that visiting scholar, Carol Bier, will be giving the annual lecture at the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz, California on February 15, 2014 from 1-2pm. The lecture is titled:
Symmetry, Asymmetry, and Symmetry-Breaking in Oriental Carpets
Patterns in traditional, hand-woven Oriental carpets are never quite what you expect – a surprise here, a flourish there, a change of color, the flip or rotation of a design where you might not expect it. The more you look, the more variations you will find. These patterns...

WSR Cafe series presents: Dr. Ghazala Anwar “Khadija: A Model Worthy of Emulation".
Please join us on April 4th at 10:30am on the 1st floor of the GTU Le Conte Building (2565 Le Conte Ave.)
This talk is based on research on the portrayal of Khadija, Prophet Muhammad's first wife in hagiographies and biographies of the Prophet written by Muslims and non-Muslims as well as modern hagiographies of Khadija herself. (2 units)
Click image to see flyer.

Doorway to Islamic Civilization: Hands-on Islamic Art and Culture Workshops
ICCNC, 1433 Madison Street, Oakland
More information: http://zawaya.org/site/?p=1923
Islamic civilization boasts an intellectual, artistic, and cultural heritage that spans continents and centuries. The gradations of shape, color, taste, texture, scent, and sound that exist within and between Muslim peoples and cultures are as rich and diverse as their ideas and attitudes, as well as their languages, races, and ethnicities. Out of this fertile and potent mix of elements emerged artforms and practices that can...

Center for Islamic Studies at GTU would like to invite you to attend a book reading with Hisham Aidi, author of Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and New Muslim Youth Culture. This fascinating, timely, and important book on the connection between music and political activism among Muslim youth around the world looks at how hip-hop, jazz, and reggae, along with Andalusian and Gnawa music, have become a means of building community and expressing protest in the face of the West’s policies in the War on Terror. Hisham Aidi interviews musicians and activists, and reports from music festivals and...

The real stories that can change our lives come from the mythic, archetypal world of the soul. What are the stories that are needed at this time, to help awaken us from the collective nightmare of materialism that is destroying our ecosystem? How can we work to bring these transformative stories into our communities and our daily life?
In the morning there will be a talk and questions. In the afternoon, a simple meditation on the heart followed by time for spiritual discussion.
This event, Saturday, June 29, 10:00 am to 4:30 pm, is co-sponsored by Mercy Center Burlingame and The Golden Sufi...

From the Fall 2016 issue of Currents, view PDF
By Elizabeth S. Peña
Picturing things, taking a view, is what makes us human; art is making sense and giving shape to that sense. It is like the religious search for God. —Gerhard Richter
The arts—literature, dance, music, and the visual arts—enhance religious experience and evoke transcendence. Artistic expression often provides common ground for scholars and practitioners representing a wide variety of faith traditions. In the classroom the arts offer entry into complex concepts and philosophies. These are just a few of the reasons why the...

Islam & Authors series at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California (ICCNC), conversation with author Dr. William Chittick.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Islamic Studies.
ICCNC, 1433 Madison Street, Oakland 94612. Click here for directions.
Tickets: $10 general/$5 students at the door, or available at www.iccnc.org.
For more information, please contact info@iccnc.org.
About the Author
Born and raised in Milford, Connecticut, William C. Chittick did his B.A. in history at the College of Wooster (Ohio) and then went to Iran, where he completed a Ph.D. in Persian literature at...

An interreligious event featuring lectures by Dr. Deena Aranoff and Dr. Nargis Virani. Cosponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies and the Center for Islamic Studies at the GTU, as part of the Madrasa-Midrasha program. GTU Dinner Board Room, 2400 Ridge Rd., Berkeley.
The GTU would like to acknowledge and thank The Walter and Elise Haas Fund for making this event possible.

Two, very different contemporary characters discover romance in a dramatic reading of best-selling novel The Forty Rules of Love by acclaimed Moroccan theater, voice, film, and TV performer and translator Hassan El Jai (recently performed at Form Mason in SF). Elif Shafak’s novel follows the lives of a Jewish-American housewife and a Sufi Muslim based in Amsterdam and the unlikely love they develop for each other. El Jai’s adaptation transforms the tale into a mystical journey and an artistic experience anchored by personal revelations.
About the Book:
Elif Shafak, the most widely read...

What Chinese Muslims Have to Say About Islamic History
By Jessica Lilu Chen, Ph.D., Islamic Studies and Chinese Religion, Stanford University
and CIS Visiting Scholar at GTU/CIS
This talk will examine Dr. Chen’s efforts to bridge the Buddhist and Muslim traditions through interfaith chaplaincy education. The second portion of the talk will focus on her research documenting historical narratives produced by Hui Muslims in early modern China. Her projects raise questions about how we might rethink the prevailing assumptions and power structures underpinning our understanding of Islam.
...

Solidarity Accross Difference
By Jennifer W. Davidson
From the Spring 2019 edition of Skylight
See PDF of this article
When Mahjabeen Dhala and Sheryl Johnson participated in the GTU’s Women’s Studies in Religion (WSR) seminar as doctoral students last spring, they found it an exceptional experience. “I think what I valued most was having the chance to form community and develop our own scholarly interests in a supportive, challenging, and empowering community of co-learners,” said Sheryl, a PhD candidate in the department of Theology and Ethics.
Her colleague concurs. “...

by Arthur Holder
from Currents Fall 2015
Responding to the changing landscapes of the academy and the wider society, the GTU has created an innovative approach to doctoral education that features new opportunities for interdisciplinary scholarship and interreligious conversation. Students who enter the PhD and ThD programs at the GTU in fall 2016 will be able to take advantage of this new approach. The curriculum recently adopted by the Core Doctoral Faculty builds on the historic strengths of the GTU while making the doctoral program more responsive to the diverse research interests and...

Panel Discussion and Workshop: Public Event
Mangalam Research Center, 2018 Allston Way, Berkeley
‘Meditation’ has become widely accepted in the West as a ‘technique’ for relaxation, stress reduction, inner clarity and access to states of ‘elevated’ states of consciousness. Yet the fact that the term ‘meditation’, and the terms ‘contemplation,’ ‘reflection,’ and ‘prayer’, have come to mean so many different things, to some many different people, and in so many different ways — not to mention the growing interest in how to understand ‘meditation’ in terms of modern science — has left many...

from Currents Fall 2014
The founding documents of the Graduate Theological Union describe a mission that is both ecumenical and interfaith. For more than five decades, we have lived into that mission, but today our foot is definitely on the accelerator. We are currently offering our first courses on Hindu sacred texts and Hindu comparative ethics; we hope to offer our first courses in Sikh Studies as soon as next year. The purpose of these new initiatives is to increase the representation at the GTU table of all of the major religious traditions of the world, so that scholar-practitioners...

The Center for Islamic Studies would like to encourage you to attend an exciting exhibit at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco February 25- May 8 entitled, Pearls on a String: Artists Patrons and Poets at the Great Islamic Courts.
Pearls on a String is one of a trio of special exhibitions kicking off the museum’s 50th anniversary year. The exhibition, says museum director and CEO Jay Xu, embodies the goal that motivated the museum’s creation back in 1966 and still guides it today: to serve as a ‘bridge to understanding’ between East and West.
“The Asian Art Museum showcases art that...

An institution of higher learning unlike any other, the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley brings together scholars of the world’s diverse religions and wisdom traditions to advance new knowledge, share inspiration, and collaborate on solutions.